A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SIEGE; Rebels Pause for Ramadan, but Vow Swift Attack on Kunduz

Northern Alliance fighters who have encircled the besieged city of Kunduz paused briefly today to celebrate the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but their commanders said they would be moving ahead -- perhaps within 24 hours -- to attack the city where they have as many as 20,000 Taliban fighters surrounded.

As the siege of Kunduz entered its fifth day, the alliance commanders said they would give the local Taliban one last chance to change sides or surrender -- or else they would die.

Pir Muhammed, a longtime Northern Alliance warlord, said that the attack could begin by early Saturday. The alliance estimates the number of fighters inside the city at up to 20,000, but the Pentagon puts the figure at about 3,000.

''Very soon, we will be moving towards Kunduz,'' Mr. Muhammed said.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, when asked about the standoff in Kunduz while attending graduation ceremonies at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago, said, ''There's going to be fierce battles, and a lot of people are going to be killed.''

An aide to Gen. Daoud Khan, a senior Northern Alliance commander here, said that a bomb had destroyed the Taliban military headquarters in the neighborhood of Bala Hesir and killed more than 100 Taliban soldiers. The strikes inside the city, the aide said, had prompted many Taliban soldiers to leave for the front lines outside.

Still, there were signs that Northern Alliance leaders continued to look for a peaceful way to take the city, which holds one of the largest garrisons of Taliban soldiers in the country.

Mr. Muhammed said that negotiations with lower-level Taliban commanders inside the city continued. General Khan said that he had received a request from Haji Omar, the Taliban governor of Kunduz, for more time to convince some of the local Taliban commanders that they should surrender.

Mr. Muhammed said that negotiators were focusing on breaking off lower-level commanders from the main Taliban force, though they were not interested in bargaining with the Taliban military leadership. He said the same was true for several thousand foreign fighters who came from several Muslim nations to join the Taliban cause.

On the front lines here, many rank-and-file Northern Alliance soldiers, as well as some of the commanders, have said they would shoot foreign soldiers if they refused to surrender -- and shoot them if they did.

For all the military activity today, the focus of the day for most people was the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

At the city's main mosque, about 1,000 men listened to a speech from Mullah Hatib Maswaunul Haq, who justified the current fight against the Taliban by calling it a ''holy war'' against invaders from Pakistan and other countries.

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A version of this article appears in print on November 17, 2001, on Page B00003 of the National edition with the headline: A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SIEGE; Rebels Pause for Ramadan, but Vow Swift Attack on Kunduz. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe